Marco Polo

Jonathan Clements

• Publisher: Haus Publishing
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781910376003
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

The records of the Chinese Yuan dynasty do not mention a Marco Polo at all (and they should), and there aer some suspicious omissions from Polo's text - no tea, no foot-binding, no mention of Chinese printing, or even of the Great Wall. Did Polo even go to China?

Notes

1. The church of Akyndios in Constantinople was rededicated as the basilica of Saint Mark, Saint Nicholas and Saint Mary of the Latins. Had the Polo grandparents’ third child been a girl, we might presume she would have been called Maria. Instead, Maffeo unobligingly turned out to be a boy.

2. J Larner, Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World (Yale University Press, New Haven: 1999) p 33.

3. Quoted in R Latham (ed), Marco Polo: The Travels (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth: 1958), p 11, hereafter Latham, Marco Polo.

4. Latham, Marco Polo, p 34. See also H Yule (ed), The Book of Ser Marco Polo The Venetian, Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East (John Murray, London: 1871) Vol I, p 4, hereafter Yule, Marco Polo I, which omits the final line.

5. Yule, Marco Polo I, p 10 (Latham, Marco Polo, p 35).

6. Latham, Marco Polo, pp 37–8, but see Larner, Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World, p 35, which notes that Visconti did not arrive in the Holy Land until 1271, and suggests that this incident was a later interpolation by an over-eager Rustichello (Yule, Marco Polo I, p 17).

7. Latham, Marco Polo, p 46. Marco calls the town Ayas.

8. S Runciman, A History of the Crusades, vol. III, The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth: 1954, repr. 2002) p 340.

9. Yule, Marco Polo I, p 22 (Latham, Marco Polo, p 39).

10. Yule, Marco Polo I, p 25 (Latham, Marco Polo, p 39).

11. See also Larner, Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World, p 187.

12. Yule, Marco Polo I, p 73 (Latham, Marco Polo, p 58).

13. Latham, Marco Polo, p 65 (Yule, Marco Polo, p 93). This appears to refer to the historical Qaraunas or Nigudaris, who were Mongol bandits operating out of a base in southern Afghanistan. They were eventually brought under control by a military campaign of Abaqa, father of Arghun. See J Boyle (ed), The Successors of Genghis Khan; translations from Rashid al-Din’s Jami` al-Tavarikh, dealing with the years 1229–94 (Columbia University Press: 1971) p 139.

14. Yule, Marco Polo I, p 102 (Latham, Marco Polo, p 67).

15. Latham, Marco Polo, pp 68–9 (Yule, Marco Polo I, p 115).

16. Latham, Marco Polo, pp 77–8.

17. Yule, Marco Polo I, p 163.

18. Latham, Marco Polo, pp 79–80.

19. Yule, Marco Polo I, p 175 (Latham, Marco Polo, pp 82–3).

20. Latham, Marco Polo, p 88 (Yule, Marco Polo I, p 189).

21. Yule, Marco Polo I, p 181 (Latham, Marco Polo, pp 84–5).

22. Latham, Marco Polo, p 91 (Yule, Marco Polo I, p 198).

23. Latham, Marco Polo, p 102 (Yule, Marco Polo I, p 185).

24. Latham, Marco Polo, p 108 (Yule, Marco Polo I, p 264). Marco’s claim of a ‘sixteen mile’ circumference is an exaggeration, although if he meant 16 li (a Chinese unit of measurement) he is very close to the true size of the historical hunting grounds. See S Haw, Marco Polo’s China: A Venetian in the realm of Khubilai Khan (Routledge, London: 2006) p 69.

25. Yule, Marco Polo I, pp 310–11 (Latham, Marco Polo, pp 119–20).

26. Yule, Marco Polo I, p 26 (Latham, Marco Polo, p 40).

27. Yule, Marco Polo I, pp 264–5 (Latham, Marco Polo, p 109).

28. Yule, Marco Polo I, p 318 (Latham, Marco Polo, pp 121–2); see also M Rossabi, Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times (University of California Press, Berkeley: 1988) p 151.

29. Yule, Marco Polo I, p 331 (Latham, Marco Polo, p 128). For the more prosaic explanation concerning the water supply, see Haw, Marco Polo’s China, p 70.

30. Yule, Marco Polo I, pp 331–2 (Latham, Marco Polo, p 128).

31. F Wood, Did Marco Polo Go To China? (Secker and Warburg, London: 1995) pp 104–5.

32. Yule, Marco Polo I, p 367 (Latham, Marco Polo, pp 129–30).

33. Marco’s text places the account of Ahmad soon after his first arrival in Khanbalikh. However, the chronicles of the Yuan dynasty report the events as occurring in 1282, some years later. Events therefore appear to have unfolded while Marco was away for a second summer in Shang-du, with their denouement a few weeks later after he returned to Khanbalikh again.

34. Yule, Marco Polo I, pp 370–1 (Latham, Marco Polo, p 131). I have followed the suggestion of Haw, Marco Polo’s China, pp 160–1, in placing Ahmad’s murder before Marco’s arrival, and the trial afterwards, in order to explain the varying degrees of comprehension and exactitude demonstrated by Marco in his account. A man called ‘Polo’ (Boluo) testified against Ahmad as part of the investigation, leading some (e.g. Yule, Marco Polo, p 377) to assume that Marco had been directly involved. However, this Boluo was no relation.

35. Yule, Marco Polo I, p 372 (Latham, Marco Polo, p 133).

36. Marco’s grasp of facts seems vague here – the names he gives are actually mistranslations of a couple of ranks, while the triple-whammy idea of a ‘mother, daughter and wife’ ravished by the conqueror seems suspiciously close to Chinese poetic licence.

37. Yule, Marco Polo I, p 374 (Latham, Marco Polo, pp 134–5). See also Rossabi, Khubilai Khan, p 201, which notes that anti-Muslim feeling in Khubilai’s court persisted until 1287, and led to a dramatic fall in the number of Muslim merchants...

Table of contents

• Marco Polo
• Contents
• Introduction
• Fraterna Compagnia
• The Silk Road
• In Xanadu
• Khanbalikh
• The Fork in the Road
• Cathay
• The Finest City in the World
• In the Khan’s Service
• Cipangu
• Over Strange Seas
• A Passage to India
• The Return Home
• The Million Lies
• Notes
• Chronology
• Further Reading